Childress shows up to testify in bounty appeal

Posted by Mike Florio on December 3, 2012, 9:27 AM EDT

AP

The appeal hearing in the bounty case continues on Monday, and an unlikely witness is testifying.

Browns offensive coordinator Brad Childress has made the flight from California to Louisiana to testify before former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, according to Larry Holder of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Childress, the former head coach of the Vikings, reportedly got the bounty ball rolling by complaining to the league office that the Saints had a price tag on the head (and other body parts) of former Vikings quarterback Brett Favre. Childress specifically said that former Vikings defensive tackle Jimmy Kennedy had said the Saints had a bounty on Favre.

During the prior phases and stages of the bounty case, Childress had no involvement. Technically, he has no relevance to what did or didn’t happen, since he was merely acting on hearsay and rumor when he reported the bounty to the league office.

And so it’s fair to infer that he’s not testifying because the NFL thinks his version of the facts is relevant, but because the players’ lawyers want to have the opportunity to question him — or because Tagliabue is curious regarding how this all got started, especially since Kennedy vehemently has claimed that he never said anything to anyone about a bounty.

27 responses to “Childress shows up to testify in bounty appeal”

im glad childress is doing this. he was and still is in my mind a great coach and should not have been fired from minnesota. screw over the saints like they screwed you over f… the saints and f… ziggy wilf for keeping frazier musgrave and ponder this season.

While I agree that it helped cost him his head coaching career, the Vikings losing the NFC championship game is not the entire reason Childress was fired.

Anyone who is a Viking fan today, and understands the teams QB struggles (and who knew six years ago that Tarvaris Jackson was not the team’s QB of the future, knows why Childress is no longer a head coach.

His testimony probably has some bearing on the issue of bias. One of the themes the players are trying to advance is that their suspensions are, at least in part, a product of the league trying to make an example of them. As evidenced by Vilma’s claim of a “witch hunt” on Saturday.

Through Childress, the league can contradict the conspiracy theorists. They can establish the bounty investigation was the product of a complaint made to the league by one of its head coaches. It was initiated in the ordinary course of business. Not to serve some ulterior motive or agenda as the players are claiming.

Childress’ testimony regarding, not only what he heard from Kennedy, but what he witnessed during the 2009 NFC Championship Game is quite probative of the league’s intent. Just maybe the league and Goodell don’t have a vendetta against the Saints and the players after all.

Childress is a joke but his tenure at MN proves how far a franchise QB can carry a team, despite the Head Coach.

His drafting of T Jack goes to show the depth of his ignorance. His selling of his soul to bring BrINT Favre to the Vikings was truly shameful and the INT thrown in the Saints game was pure karma to a franchise that is still deserving of truckloads more of it.

Chili is a stand-up guy and he wouldn’t be making these allegations if it didn’t happen. The Saints are a sleazy organization and they are getting their just reward for cheating. And I agree that Chili never should have been fired by that petulant Zygi Wilf fool. If Chili had been retained, the Vikings would still be contenders in the NFC North. Now they’re the laughingstocks of the division and it’s all because of Wilf and Rick Spielman.

“Childress’ testimony regarding, not only what he heard from Kennedy, but what he witnessed during the 2009 NFC Championship Game is quite probative of the league’s intent.”

Kennedy denies telling him anything and what he witnessed in the NFC Championship game was witnessed by about 60 million. He has nothing to offer except the losing side’s version and maybe some sour grapes.

Brad childress did not get fired because of tjack he moved on from tjack and got brett favre do you remember… If brad can go 6-10 8-8 10-6 with tjack and ferrotte and frazier can go 3-13 & 6-? with ponder whos the better coach and tell me who are the better qbs… So back to why childress got fired and its because he let go of the cancer known as randy moss and ziggy didnt like the move so he fired him not bc of tjack. Brad and spielman put together the roster ziggy killed it with the firing.

Brad is there because according to his player Kennedy this whole lie of a bounty started and ended with the coach and a disgruntled fired Saints coach-Cerullo. Tags has one chance to get this right or it goes to court.

Brad childress did not get fired because of tjack he moved on from tjack and got brett favre do you remember… If brad can go 6-10 8-8 10-6 with tjack and ferrotte and frazier can go 3-13 & 6-? with ponder whos the better coach and tell me who are the better qbs… So back to why childress got fired and its because he let go of the cancer known as randy moss and ziggy didnt like the move so he fired him not bc of tjack. Brad and spielman put together the roster ziggy killed it with the firing.
———————————————————-
correction……

chili sold out the farm to get favre and went thru over 12 qb’s (so called qb guru) during his tenure in MN & by kissing favres a$$ for 2 years & completely obliviating the o-line the vikes now have the next 5 years to fix his aftermath for what he blew up in 4. he was completely in charge of personell in MN you know from draft to free agency. could not cultivate a qb, blew the o-lineup & let the secondary wither away all in 4 years. he may be a playbook guru but sucks a$$ as a talent scout

Brad kept 3 guys from the tice era mckinne, kevin williams and ej henderson the rest brad childress brought in and lead them to the nfc championship game so in my eyes in 4 years he was a great talent evaluator because of the people he brought in and missed on 1 position qb still got to 3 years of playoffs didnt work he kept the same roster and made a change at qb. He evaluated his talent at qb and got brett favre and that was the right move because of what they accomplished. He is a good coach bc he evaulated the talent put together a great game plan and gave the players a chance to win and the players lost it with turnovers.

Childress is the guy that initially went to the league. He is not there about what he saw on the field. He is there to simply state what he was told by Kennedy. Like it or not, that was a damning allegation by Kennedy and warranted an investigation. Kennedy has since claimed he never said that to Childress. The problem is that he also said he never spoke to NFL investigators either and has already been proven wrong on that. Nobody knows what he said to them but it is clear that he did talk to them. His later claim that he did talk to the investigators but the bounty stuff never came up is absurd considering that is the sole reason for the conversation(s) to have happened in the first place.

The players’ main defense is to damage the credibility of the witnesses. Childress is likely there to show where the real credibility issues lie. The league has stated all along that they believe there was a PFP/PFI program in New Orleans. They identified that to the owner/management and the program continued but there is no way to know if the players were made aware of the ultimatum. Goodell has said that he believes both elements (PFP/PFI) to be a “bounty” and that triggered the semantics argument.

The players’ stories have changed several times. There was no such program at all soon became we were only following orders. Then it morphed into pay for performance vs. pay for injury and “cart-offs” were just clean legal hits that resulted in a player exiting a game instead of being what the term seems to mean. They boiled down the program to one of intent and then claimed there was no intent at all.

All the while they attacked the commissioner and the process. The players have been inconsistent, not the league. The players demand “proof” because they do not believe there is any. This is not a “legal” action. It is a disciplinary hearing. The rules are different and the “burden of proof” interpretation is not the same as people expect. All the league has to do is prove that its beliefs were “reasonable”. That’s it. The only issue I see for the league (other than a true legal process inserting what “should be” instead of what actually is) is how they singled out the 4 players from the crowd. The coaches are easy to explain but what makes Fujita any different from a player that wasn’t suspended but still participated in the programs?

“The players’ stories have changed several times. There was no such program at all soon became we were only following orders.”

None of this is true. The players have never denied that they had a pool. They have never once said they were following orders. They have only denied that they intended to hurt people. Did anyone get hurt? If not, then their claims that they are being punished for the “spoken word, not the clenched fist” are true. This thing should be dropped.

They have only denied that they intended to hurt people. Did anyone get hurt? If not, then their claims that they are being punished for the “spoken word, not the clenched fist” are true.
———————————————-

Everybody knows there was a bounty. The players lie like rugs to protect themselves and their coaches, but anyone who’s anyone knows exactly what happened. Anyone at home watching the saints/mn game or the saints/cardinals game could see they were aiming to hurt the qb. It shouldn’t be dropped, it should be pursued to the fullest extent and the people involved should be out of football. If you can’t win a game without crippling the 40 year old qb of the opposing team, then you don’t deserve to be there anyway.